1. Field of the Invention
Described below are methods, devices, and systems for messaging applications that incorporate drawn or written graphic inputs.
2. Description of the Related Art
Messaging applications, such as text messaging or instant message, have grown very popular and are found today on millions of computers, cell phones, smart phones, tablets, and other communication devices worldwide. These applications send messages between communication devices, often using Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Message Service (MMS), or web-based data formats. Such messaging applications commonly include, but are not limited to: text messaging applications like Apple Messenger or Google Hangouts, or Instant Messaging applications like Facebook Messenger or Whatsapp. Many industrial messaging applications also exist to support particular industries, such as messaging between a doctor and patient, or tech support applications.
Despite this growing popularity and the technological advancement of modern communication devices, today's messaging applications limit users' creative potential and make messaging more difficult by not providing a simple and expressive way to send graphic inputs. Rather, today's technologies, if they provide a way to send graphic inputs at all, require multiple steps to send a graphic input and confine the graphic input to a single message unit, such as a message bubble, that cannot interact with previously sent messages or be significantly altered after it is sent.
Originally, messaging applications required users to open each individual message separately, such as on a pager or feature phone. As such, it was natural that each message was treated as its own unit of communication separated from previously sent messages. More advanced technologies now display multiple messages simultaneously and in chronological order in a scrollable environment. However, whether the message consists of text, a picture, a graphic input or drawing, a video, a gif, a voice message, or other forms of communication, today's technologies continue to treat each message as a single unit of information that is separated from previous messages, and when sent is displayed at the end of a chronological list of messages. This paradigm does not allow graphic inputs to exist outside the physical message unit, such as a message bubble, or to exist outside the chronological flow of the conversation. Messages are both physically separated as well as time-bound.
As such, today's messaging applications do not provide a way to graphically reference previously sent messages, such as by using graphic inputs to circle or point to messages displayed in a conversation. Rather, users must send a follow-up message which is appended to the end of a conversation. Especially when describing a previously sent message, switching conversation topics, or discussing multiple conversation topics simultaneously, this method of reference can create confusion and necessitate longer follow-up explanations. If a message is a picture message, no method exists to annotate that picture with graphic inputs after it is sent, except by resending a copy of the picture with annotation as a new message. Furthermore, no method exists to graphically connect two messages to provide additional information about the relationship between messages.
Today's messaging applications also do not provide a way for users to easily collaboratively communicate graphic inputs or to communicate graphic inputs in real-time, as graphic inputs must be composed, sent and displayed as separate picture messages that may not be altered. In addition, sending drawings or graphic inputs today requires performing a time consuming, multi-step process.
Significant programmatic constraints are encountered when solving the above-mentioned problem and can be technologically complicated to implement.
Thus, a need in the art exists for an enhanced messaging system that is easier to use and that more fully captures the creativity and complexity of human communication.